Harmonic
by BlueNeutrino
Summary: Sharing a bed most definitely not meant for two was never going to work out well. Or maybe it did. AKA Dandelion finds himself listening to Geralt's heart and begins to wax poetic. Part of the "Heart of a Witcher" series.
1. Major

**A/N: ****So I imagine this happens wayyy back when before Geralt has even met Yennefer. Around when the short stories start.**

Geralt wakes to a heavy weight on his chest. His first instincts tell him to push it away, reach a swift hand for the sword laying nearby and quickly cut down whatever had dared get so close to him in his sleep, but the familiar scent in his nose and a surprisingly quick recollection of the previous night halts the urge.

Much as he may wish the warm, solid weight is that of a girl he'd brought to bed a few hours before, it's only Dandelion. The attic room, the only vacant and affordable one in the village, offers not enough space to even stand fully upright and precisely one bed: a narrow cot barely big enough for one pushed up against the wall.

Geralt had been more than content to take the floor, but Dandelion, in his misguided optimism, had been insistent that they could both fit. And so, after a halfhearted protest and a few brief minutes of awkward discomfort perching on their own halves, Dandelion decided to do away with foolish notions of personal space and flung out his limbs on top of Geralt, wrapped the ratty blankets tight around both of them, tucked his head into the witcher's chest, and passed out.

Hours later, he's still there. Only now, awake.

"Remarkable," Geralt can hear him muttering. "Oh, that is magnificent. Melodious like harp strings being struck by a hammer…"

"Dandelion…" Geralt says gruffly, shifting his weight though without making an effort to shove him off. "What are you talking about?"

The bard tilts his head, looks up at the witcher from somewhere underneath his chin. "Your heart, Geralt. You never told me you were carrying round such an instrument of beauty in your chest."

Frowning in annoyance, Geralt at last raises his hands to push him away. "It's my heart, Dandelion. You've got your own," he says irritably, extending his arms until the poet is forced to kneel upright with one knee still uncomfortably pressing on Geralt's hip.

Dandelion flattens a hand over his own chest and huffs. "And as proud of it as I am, it's certainly none so melodic and enchanting as yours. That's positively music, Geralt."

Geralt grits his teeth. He certainly doesn't feel well rested yet and he has no idea how Dandelion apparently does. Unless this is all just sleep deprived and still-drunk rambling. "Not how I'd describe it."

"Oh, and I suppose you've heard it, have you?"

"Middle of a fight with the beast of the day, I've heard it plenty."

"Pah. You've heard the blood rushing in your ears. You've never placed your head upon your own chest, or if you have, it's certainly a feat I'd like to see. A shame, really. Whatever else those mutations did to you, they've certainly made your heart a remarkable instrument. Were I more prone to panic than I am, I'd have feared you'd passed away in the night your heartbeat is so slow, but as it is I'm not the type to be melodramatic. Instead, I counted. It keeps perfect four-four time to the tune of a single beat per bar, and the tone is rich and lyrical. I couldn't reproduce it with a drum if I tried."

Geralt looks at him, and crosses his arms over his chest. "Thanks for that observation. Are you finished?"

"Finished? Music like that deserves to be transformed into song. A ballad of _The Witcher with a Heart._"

Geralt shoves Dandelion off of him, rolls his eyes, and closes them. "Well, while you figure out how to do that, I'm going back to sleep," he says, shifting his weight again and folding his arms so that Dandelion can't settle back into the same position as before.

"Come now, Geralt. You're taking up all the space on the bed."

"I said I'd take the floor. Offer's passed."

"Geralt…" He actually sounds a little hurt. "Don't sulk. How have I offended you?"

The witcher cracks open an eye, feeling a little guilty. "You haven't," he answers sheepishly. He's self-conscious, but Dandelion's unusual attempt at a compliment appears utterly sincere and without agenda. It had caught him off guard.

"Then don't be like that. It's draughty in this dump and I'm sure the floor's crawling with rats and cockroaches and other things. I'd rather stay here where we can at least both be warm."

Geralt pretends to consider. "Fine," he eventually says faux-irritably, uncrossing his arms and shuffling to allow Dandelion to lie down again. "Just don't start rambling about my heart again while I'm trying to sleep."

Relieved, Dandelion settles himself back down and finds a comfortable spot on Geralt's chest before pulling up the blankets. He's right. The room is cold, and Geralt finds he's actually grateful for the additional body heat warming him through his shirt.

"I'm sorry," Dandelion mumbles to Geralt's surprise. "I just...I really do wish I had a way to preserve it. In song, or with music somehow. I like what it means."

"What does it mean?"

"That you're alive."

Geralt is silent. His heart reacts though, giving two beats at twice its normal pace, and he knows Dandelion hears it.

"Centuries from now, I'll be long gone," the poet continues. "I suspect we both will. But just maybe, people will still be playing my songs, and they'll hear it and know: you lived. You were a witcher with a heart sometimes far too big for your own good, and this was how it sounded."

Geralt still doesn't say a word. _That what you think of me? _he wonders. _Heart too big for my own good?_

Though, here he is, lying uncomfortably on a bed far too small with his friend curled up on his chest because Geralt couldn't bear to let him sleep alone on the floor. Maybe Dandelion has a point.

A short while later, when Dandelion begins to hum quietly as if composing a lullaby to the rhythm of Geralt's sleep-steady heart, he doesn't even complain. The witcher smiles softly, drinks in the warmth and the peacefulness of the melody and Dandelion's own heart he can feel thumping against his side, and lets it lull him to sleep.


	2. Minor

**A/N: ****ValmureEld wanted more of Dandelion's moment of "not" panicking, so...here.**

Two in a less-than-single bed is actually quite cozy. Granted, Dandelion isn't actually sleeping, but he isn't freezing to death in the draughty attic either with Geralt's body heat to warm him. The most he's managed amounts to a couple hours' nap while treating Geralt as a human pillow, but given how deeply the witcher is sleeping, it appears he doesn't mind.

_Really _deeply sleeping. It's actually a little odd.

Dandelion adjusts his position, tucks his head closer to the heat of Geralt's chest seeping through his thin shirt, and still the witcher doesn't move. At all. Dandelion's not sure he can even feel him breathing. It takes several seconds longer for the poet to realise that nor can he hear a heartbeat.

His own heart gives a panicked stutter as he straightens up and a hundred terrible thoughts race through his head. Geralt's heart hasn't...stopped, has it? Was it Dandelion's fault? Was he somehow sleeping on the witcher in such a way that it suffocated him? Damn it, they should have stuck with his idea of him taking the floor…

"Geralt?"

Nothing.

Shaking with nerves, Dandelion reaches out a terrified hand to touch Geralt's throat and wonders what the hell he's going to do if the witcher's really dead. He's still warm, right? That's a good sign. What would Shani do if she had a still-warm witcher in front of her who wasn't breathing?

"Come on, Geralt, don't make me answer that," he mutters nervously, and is just about to give up on his confused search for a pulse when he feels a tap against his fingertips.

For a moment, the poet freezes. That was real? He hadn't imagined it?

After what feels like an age, another tap answers him with a "yes".

"Don't do that to me," he chastises the sleeping witcher, but still isn't reassured when he feels just how slow the pulse in Geralt's throat is. He barely has the patience to keep his finger in place long enough to feel it beat again, wondering instead what will happen if he has to go for help and how he's going to explain this.

Was is the potions? Sometime witchers can have a bad reaction to a toxic mix, he knows, though in the dark, Dandelion can't really tell if Geralt looks sick and veiny or not. Better instead then to put to use the talent he knows he can rely upon, and lowers his sharp ear back down to rest on Geralt's chest. It's still warm, and this time Dandelion forces himself to listen for several seconds until he hears a beat. When it comes, the sound is rich and strong and powerful, and the bard's anxiety melts away.

Geralt's heart isn't slow because he's sick. It's because he has no need for it to be fast. What blood Dandelion's own heart takes maybe three or four beats to pump, from the sheer force of it, it sounds that Geralt's can match it in one. Astonishing.

Dandelion closes his eyes in anticipation and lets out a soft, "aha!" when Geralt's heart beats again, the thudding far louder and stranger in many ways than how he'd expect a witcher's heart to sound.

What _had _he expected from Geralt's heart, he wonders? Something harsh like Geralt's voice, perhaps, or maybe a little rough and unusual like the rest of his appearance, but what he hears, Dandelion can only describe as beautiful. The sound has depth and resonance and a richness of tone less akin to dull percussion and more like a plucked string. _Like my lute? _the poet muses, or maybe a harp.

Reassured now that Geralt isn't dying, Dandelion knows he could stop listening, yet with his ear still glued to the witcher's chest, he finds he doesn't want to. It dawns on him that Geralt isn't sleeping so deeply because there's something wrong: he simply trusts Dandelion enough that he allows himself to relax fully around him and get a rare night of proper sleep.

That thought fills Dandelion with a rush of warmth as he resumes his close listening. "Incredible," he murmurs softly, waiting for the space between beats so as not to disturb them with his excited utterances. "Simply beautiful."

While Geralt's mutations may be more obvious in the golden flash of his eyes or the milky whiteness of his hair, Dandelion finds the relative obscurity of the witcher's strange heartbeat the most beautiful of all.

He's still muttering his appreciation when several minutes later Geralt at last begins to stir.


End file.
